The United Kingdom government has announced that teachers who trained in Ghana, India or Nigeria will no longer be able to apply for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in England through the dedicated overseas teacher service, effective September 9, 2026.
Under the revised criteria, a country must have a national regulator capable of confirming a teacher’s professional standing and must be able to supply references that meet the UK’s verification standards. The government gave two distinct reasons for the exclusions. India was removed because it does not have a national regulator that can confirm the professional standing of individual teachers. For Ghana and Nigeria, the UK government pointed to a data pattern that raised serious concerns about the reliability of applications.
More than 70% of applications from teachers in both countries included work history references tied to personal email addresses, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, rather than official school email domains. The government said this creates a significant burden on assessors, who must spend extra time and resources attempting to verify the information submitted.
The government stressed that it must be confident the information provided in QTS applications is genuine, arguing this is essential to ensure overseas teachers awarded QTS have the skills and experience needed to work in English schools. Teachers from Ghana, India and Nigeria who no longer qualify for the overseas QTS route can still explore other available pathways into teaching in England.
